Earlier this month, outgoing Colorado Governor Bill Ritter granted a posthumous pardon to Joe Arridy, a mentally challenged man who was executed for murder more than 70 years ago, in spite of evidence suggesting his innocence.
Arridy was executed in 1939 by lethal gas after being convicted of killing a Pueblo girl with a hatchet. He had an IQ of 46 - too low to be considered for the death penalty today. Arridy appears to have given a coerced confession and was likely not in Pueblo when the 15-year-old girl was killed. Ritter said an overwhelming amount of evidence suggests Arridy did not commit the crime.
It's such a travesty that you don't know whether to rejoice or to cry. No one following up the case today has been able to locate any of Arridy's living relatives. He remains buried in the prison cemetery. Robert Perske, a former Colorado minister and author of Deadly Innocence?, has gone on record saying he would like to have made for him a tombstone that says, "Here lies an innocent man."
Innocent, of course. That statement should also make us think about the ones who had passed the judgment and proceeded with the execution. None of them would be alive today. But murderers if there were any, it would be they. Arridy, in fact, was said to have died with a smile on his face. Innocent, by all means. It was beyond his mental faculties to do anything to the contrary.
The medieval crowd who had lusted for an execution had got the death sentence they had clamoured for. They, of course, are not around to apologise. And wouldn't apologise be too feeble an act? But then death penalty advocates are themselves bereft of the mental faculties needed for a civilised society. The quest to clear the innocent man's name even after execution ought to be lauded. The http://www.friendsofjoearridy.com/ website documents this pursuit.
The Death Penalty Focus website (http://www.deathpenalty.org/) lists 10 reasons to oppose the death penalty
- Innocence and the Death Penalty: The wrongful execution of an innocent person is an injustice that can never be rectified. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty, 139 men and women have been released from death row nationally.
- The High Cost of the Death Penalty: It costs far more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life.
- Death Penalty Can Prolong Suffering for Victims' Families: Many family members who have lost love ones to murder feel that the death penalty will not heal their wounds nor will it end their pain; the extended legal process prior to executions can prolong the agony experienced by the victims' families.
- International Views on the Death Penalty: The vast majority of countries in Western Europe, North America and South America - more than 139 nations worldwide - have abandoned capital punishment in law or in practice.
- Inadequate Legal Representation: Perhaps the most important factor in determining whether a defendant will receive the death penalty is the quality of the representation he or she is provided.
- Deterrence: Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crime anymore than long prison sentences.
- Arbitrariness in the Application of the Death Penalty: Politics, quality of legal counsel and the jurisdiction where a crime is committed are more often the determining factors in a death penalty case than the facts of the crime itself.
- Religious Perspectives on the Death Penalty: Although isolated passages of religious scripture have been quoted in support of the death penalty, almost all religious groups in the United States regard executions as immoral.
- Racial Disparities: The race of the victim and the race of the defendant in capital cases are major factors in determining who is sentenced to die in this country. In 1990 a report from the General Accounting Office concluded that "in 82 percent of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e. those who murdered whites were more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks."
- Alternatives to the Death Penalty: In every state that retains the death penalty, jurors have the option of sentencing convicted capital murderers to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The sentence is cheaper to tax-payers and keeps violent offenders off the streets for good.
